Ski Racing

Few sports have changed as rapidly and dramatically as did cross-country skiing in the 1980s. For more than a hundred years cross-country competitors had universally raced with the ancient diagonal stride, alternately kicking and gliding. In retrospect, it was remarkable that no one saw how much faster a skier could move if he propelled himself by skating with his skis, in the manner of an ice skater. America’s Bill Koch first observed the skate step at a Swedish marathon, then applied it to win the 1982 World Cup of Cross Country skiing. Immediately the sport was engulfed in controversy over the new technique. Within five years, World Championship and Olympic cross-country skiing was utterly transformed. Now there were as many medals for Freestyle, in which skating is permitted, as would be awarded for Classic, in which skating was prohibited. And in three more years, the freestyle revolution was so powerful that it led to the Pursuit competition, with a totally new way of starting racers and climaxing in a telegenic finish.  No one was better situated to observe the revolution than Bengt Erik Bengtsson, Chief of the Nordic Office of the Swiss-based International Ski Federation (FIS) from 1984 to 2004.

The use of a skating technique to ski across snow is hardly new. In the 1930s, when bindings were adaptable to both downhill and cross-country, skiers commonly skated across flat areas, in the style of an ice skater. For a long time cross-country ski racers skated in order to take advantage of terrain or to combat poor wax, although it was difficult to do over grooved tracks and in a narrow corridor.

In the 1960s, participants in the relatively new sport of ski orienteering – I was one of them – commonly skated.  In orienteering we use a map and compass to travel between designated points as fast as possible. The shortest route isn’t necessarily the fastest -- for example, if it’s a bushwhack. If a road is available, the competitor can  switch from traditional kick and glide skiing to propelling himself like an ice skater, going from ski to ski. Some participants even mounted thin steel edges on their skis to get a better bite on the hard snow and go faster.

The Finnish skier Pauli Siitonen was a top competitor in ski orienteering, and when he turned to marathon or Loppet racing in the 1970s he brought the technique of skating to it. But with a difference. Now, in soft snow, Siitonen would leave one ski in the track, and propel himself with the other ski, pushing off repeatedly as primitive hunters had done centuries earlier using the short Andor ski.

Other marathon skiers soon followed Siitonen. They caught the attention of America’s Bill Koch when he was participating in a 1980 Swedish marathon on flat terrain following a river. The race pitted classic World Cup skiers competed against marathon or Loppet skiers. The distance-racers by now were commonly skating. A light bulb went off in Koch’s head. Why not apply skating to standard 15, 30 and 50 kilometer FIS-sanctioned races?

At the 1982 World Ski Championships in Oslo, I was responsible for the split timing. Early in the 30-kilometer race we had a leader, Thomas Eriksson. In one special part of the track he lost so much time to Koch that we thought there was a timing error. We did not know why, but obviously it was due to Koch skating. Eriksson was the gold medalist. Koch not only won the bronze, he went on to skate his way to victory in the season-long World Cup of cross-country skiing. 

By now, the skating technique -- sometimes leaving a ski in the track, more often double-skating (called the V2 skate)-- was spreading through the sport. Officials, especially the Norwegians, were concerned that traditional cross-country racing was going to be corrupted. They wanted to ban skating entirely wherever prepared tracks existed. The ban did not happen, but at the 1983 FIS Congress the

following rules were imposed:

·      No skating in the first 100 meters after the start.

·      No skating within 200 meters of the finish.

·      No skating in the relay race 200 meters before and after the racer exchange.

Not coincidentally, the starting and finishing areas are where TV cameras and photographers are primarily located, so that the ban on skating ensured that the corrupting new technique would be less visibly public.

The issue of skating engendered bitter division within the world of Nordic skiing. On the one hand, Sweden’s Bengt Herman Nilsson, the chairman of the prestigious FIS Cross-Country Committee, welcomed the new technique. “The skating step has come to stay,” he wrote in a 1983 report. “It is even beautiful when three to four skiers in a row race with forceful skating steps - they remind me of exotic butterflies fluttering in the wind.”

On the other hand, Norwegian traditionalists were opposed to the heretical new technique. Ivar Formo, the 1976 Olympic gold medalist, who succeeded Nilsson as chairman of the FIS Cross-Country Committee, wanted to ban skating as soon as possible, and he had the emphatic support of his fellow Norwegians. A victim of their rule-making, ironically, was a Norwegian, Ove Aunli. At the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games, Aunli recorded a time in the 30-kilometer race that made him the bronze medalist, but he was disqualified for skating in a prohibited area.

While skating wasn’t allowed in the start and finish areas, it was a free-for-all over the rest of the course, with racers calculating the benefits of waxing to promote kicking, or waxing the entire ski with glide wax for skating. By now, they had mostly abandoned the old Siitonen one-ski-in-the track technique. The gliding ski was now outside of the track, riding on the snow at a slight angle, while the racer used the other ski for propulsion in a furious repetitive move. It came to be known as V-1. No more kick wax. In a late-season meet at Kiruna, Sweden, near the Arctic Circle, the 30-kilometer winner Ove Aunli, and the winner of the women’s 10 km, Anette Boe – both Norwegians – enjoyed decisive victories on skis prepared only with glide wax. . . no kick wax.

Skating raised all kinds of issues. Would it lead to injuries, such as hip displacement. A Swiss wag called skating “the Sulzer step,” after the name of a manufacturer of artificial hip joints.

Did there need to be specialized skis, boots, bindings and poles? Should not limits be placed on shortening ski length and making poles too long? How should tracks be prepared? Since skating speed slows dramatically when temperatures fall below minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit, would not farther north nations be at a disadvantage? What kind of special training was needed, not only in winter, but in summer? What if the radical new technique spread to recreational cross-country skiing?

A whole new situation had emerged, none of it finding favor with the FIS CCC (Cross-Country Committee). The majority on the committee was driven by the fear that skating would kill classic cross-country skiing.  They were resolute in wanting to restrict skating as much as possible. One way was to create narrower courses through the forest, necessarily restricting the size of machines to prepare the tracks. “Back to nature,” was the battle cry. Another idea to discourage skating was to make sure the uphills were so demanding and steep that the skier could not skate, but must herring-bone. But the preventive method most tested was the erection of nets and snow walls to narrow the track so much that skating was impossible.

On December 7, 1984, the FIS Council, the supreme governing body of the international ski federation, directed the Cross-Country Committee to test the use of small nets between the tracks, and to set courses in such a way “that the skating step will physically not be applicable on all parts of the course.”

Dutifully I purchased netting in order to test the application of the proposed new FIS rule. I still remember when I presented the invoice of five thousand dollars to my boss, FIS Secretary General Gian Franco Kasper. Skeptical, shaking his head, he asked me, “Do you really believe in this?”  He sighed and signed the check. A month later I knew that he was right, and I was wrong.

We made our first test in Davos, erecting 12 nets. One was thrown in a river by two athletes whose names were revealed to me just a couple of years ago.

Today, we can laugh about it. The winner of the race, Ove Aunli, made a mockery of the test in another way. In a very steep section, we had not thought it necessary to put netting because no one imagined anyone could skate up such a hill. But the super-strong Aunli did it with the new technique, without grip wax, double-poling and skating.

Ambiguity was in the air when the 1984-85 season opened. In a December World Cup race at Davos, the wife of Ove Aunli, Berit, said to me, “Mr. Bengtsson, you must take away this skating.” She won the ladies’ competition on skis with grip wax. Two hours later, at a press conference, she was asked, “How do you like the skating step?” I thought she would say the same as she did to me, but to my great disappointment she answered, “It is okay for me”.

The next evening I called a meeting of athletes and coaches. Present were 

the two 1984 Olympic gold medalists at Sarajevo -- Thomas Wassberg of Sweden and Nikolai Zimjatov of the Soviet Union. Dan Simoneau of the U.S. took the place of  Bill Koch. America’s Mike Gallagher was among four coaches at the meeting.

Simoneau said that the American athletes wanted skating.  After all, the Olympics are about “faster, higher and longer. ” Soviet coach Venedikt Kamenskij countered by saying that the Olympics are also about offering “an equal chance for all athletes.” As skating destroys the tracks for the later starters, they will not have that chance.

During the meeting, Thomas Wassberg passed me a note which, in retrospect, was prophetic. Cross-country, Wassberg wrote, should become two disciplines: a classical one in which the skating step is not allowed, and another one with no restriction and even allowing specialized equipment. It was an intriguing idea, but ahead of its time.

At the end of the meeting, the entire group, except the U.S.A., wanted a questionnaire sent to the national associations proposing a ban on skating at the upcoming 1985 World Nordic Championships at Seefeld, Austria. There wasn’t much time to act. FIS President Marc Hodler decreed that a skating ban at the forthcoming World Championships was only possible if all officials and all national ski associations accepted it.

The day of the captains’ meeting came. The question was introduced: “Do you agree to any restrictions concerning the skating step during the upcoming championships?”  The voting was carried out in alphabetical order.

Australia? Answer, NO. The question was dead.

Cross-country was back to where it was at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics the year before, except for one significant new equipment rule that had never existed before in cross-country skiing. To eliminate the possibility that skating could be unfairly speeded up by the abbreviating the length of skis, it was ruled that skis could be no shorter than the competitor’s height less 10 centimeters. Also, poles could be no longer than the skier’s height. In reality, nothing was going to stop the revolution in nordic ski technique. Classic-only cross-country by now had become almost indefensible.  Racers adopted the superior two-ski skating technique. They were abandoning the use of kicker wax, and switching to preparing their skis entirely with glide wax. In the men’s 30-kilometer in the ’85 World Championships, the best athlete on skis prepared with grip wax was the Russian Vladimir Smirnov, who placed 24th.

“A revolution has swept away the ancient regime,” wrote Arnold Kaech,  former FIS General Secretary, in Sport Zuerich. “A requiem for the cross-country sport should be sung.”

An advantage of the 1985 championships at Seefeld was that everyone --  spectators, media and above all, the FIS’s own officials -- could now discuss the skating controversy based on actual observation, on something they’d seen for themselves. The FIS Council met in Seefeld, and a group of experts was formed to define the future of cross-country. The immediate outcome was to test more ideas during the rest of the 1985 winter. As before, silliness as well as sanity ruled. Skate-ban zones were tested at a race in the Ural Mountains.  In a competition at Falun, Sweden, in order to prevent skating, officials put soldiers with shovels and rakes to work creating virtual tunnels along the track. Angered, U.S. coach Marty Hall threatened to withdraw his team from the race unless the tunnels were removed. They were. The press unjustly blamed the FIS for conducting an idiotic test.

At Lahti, Finland, in another World Cup race, skate-less zones were created. When an Italian racer skated through one, the Finnish coach grabbed him and threw him off the track. In the ladies’ relay race, restricted to classical technique, two teams skated from the start, hooted at by spectators. At the jury meeting afterwards, one coach reported no violations, even though he observed them.

At the winter’s last competition at the Holmenkollen in Oslo, the course was divided into classic and skating-permitted zones. At the top of a long uphill, Thomas Wassberg stopped and removed from the bottom of his skis duct tape on which he had put grip wax. Now, equipped only with glide wax, he had an advantage over the other competitors.

By the end of the winter of ’85, we concluded that none of the methods that we’d tested for limiting the skate step skating was effective. Nor could it be done by limiting the size of machines approved for track-setting.

Meanwhile, the pressure for change was mounting. Ski manufacturers were readying specialized models of skating skis to be introduced on the market. The skis would be shorter than classical cross-country skis. A decisive moment was approaching with the FIS Congress, the summit meeting of the sport of skiing, taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia.

When the FIS held its Congress in Vancouver in the summer of 1985, a record number of people showed up at the Cross-Country Committee meeting. The forces opposed to skating included Norway, the Soviet Union and Finland. Nations favoring the new technique included the U.S., Canada and Italy. Germany’s Helmut Weinbuch, influential chairman of the Nordic Combined Committee, was in favor of skating in short distance races and the relay. Out of the meeting emerged a proposal to be presented to the Congress. The most radical proposal was that half of the World Cup races over the season be in classical technique and half in freestyle, and the same for Junior World Championships. The format for other international competitions would be at the discretion of the national associations in the host countries.

I had never before taken a stand in the discussion but now I asked for the floor and declared my opinion. We don’t have enough experience. Before proceeding, the most important thing to do, I said, is to formulate rules for the two techniques, and see how they work in practice.

A Working Group was formed under the chairmanship of 1968 Olympic champion Odd Martinsen of Norway. By April 1986 it delivered a framework for the future acceptable not only to the FIS Council, but also to the entire cross-country world. Biathlon and Nordic Combined moved swiftly. The two sports chose freestyle for their competitions.

A major problem remained, however. How to police the classical competitions so that the racers didn’t cheat by skating? One faction thought the classics would be self-policing. The athletes themselves would act as police, reporting incidents of racers breaking out of the kick and stride to skate. Swiss journalist Toni Noetzli, on the other hand, wrote in the influential Sport Zurich that self-policing would never work. The winner will not necessarily be the best athlete, but the one who escaped observation and did not get caught skating. As a result of track police, there will be protests, disqualifications and endless appeals. “It will be the death of cross-country skiing,” wrote Noetzli. Even to this day, America’s Bill Koch agrees. “For the first time, cross-country skiing became a judged event, the woods filled with police looking for skating violations. The very nature of cross-country skiing changed.”

Koch’s and Noetzli’s worst fears of an entanglement of jury decisions, however, were not realized. The 1985-86 competitive World Cup season produced no major protests. Satisfied with the progress, the FIS Council in May, 1986, took formal action. After 63 years of World Championship and Olympic cross-country skiing, the FIS voted for  revolution. It officially divided the sport into classic and freestyle disciplines.

For the 1987 FIS World Nordic Championships at Oberstdorf, Germany, and for the 1988 Olympic Winter Games at Calgary, Canada, the men’s 15 and 30 kilometer races would be classic, no-skating races; the 50 kilometer and the relay (four men each racing 10-kilometers) would be freestyle, with unlimited skating allowed. The women’s 5 and 10 kilometer races would be classic; the 20 kilometer and the relay (four women each racing 5 kilometers)

For those who wondered how different nations would perform in the freshly transformed sport, surprise was in store. At the 1987 World Championships, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not participate at all in the classic races. The East Germans believed that classic cross-country was finished as a discipline. With their focus entirely on freestyle, wearing tight-fitting, streamlined suits, both men and women were expected to dominate the 50-kilometer and relay races. But the East Germans failed miserably, and the top coach was fired.

Italy too had been unenthusiastic about the continuance of races in which skating was prohibited. Yet to everyone’s astonishment the Italian cross-country racer Marco Alberello won the gold medal in the 15-kilometer classic at Oberstdorf. As a result, Italy came around to favor both classic as well as freestyle. And so did the rest of the world.

The sport of cross-country was uprooted, shaken, renewed. The Nordic Combined and Biathlon adopted skating. Recreational skiers took it up. Nordic fashion switched from classic knickers to sleek, tight-fitting pants and jackets that suited the faster speeds and dynamic athleticism of skating.

Nor was the rapid change followed by a pause. The spontaneous success, together with the FIS’s desire to discourage specialization in classic or freestyle, inspired the idea of combining the two in one competition, which led to the 1990 introduction of the Pursuit. The finish order of one establishes the start order for a second race. The leader from the first race or from a jumping competition becomes the hare chased. The Pursuit result is a tumultuous finish, appealing to spectators and television.

Nordic skiing has been changed forever. The decision-making, in the end, was wise. I am happy to have been involved in re-invention of what is now the world’s most dynamic sport.

Author Bengt Erik Bengtsson, retired, lives today in his native Sweden. His job at the FIS is now divided into cross-country, jumping and Nordic combined. Special thanks to Bill Koch and ISHA editorial board member John Fry for their contribution to the editing.  

Carol Burney of Quincy, California, and Eric McGrath of Reno, Nevada are the new world champions of longboard racing, as the Plumas Ski Club celebrated the 150th anniversary of the first ski racing and ski club in America, March 19 and 20, 2011, in Johnsville, California.

In stormy but fine style, it could have been a race scene from the 1800's as men and women longboard contestants gazed down the track trying to see the prior lines inscribed by earlier racers. The track was hard to see and many memorable tumbles took place! (Thankfully, no known injuries!) 18 inches of new snow fell Saturday night adding to the 3 feet that the club had shoveled and groomed the
prior day. Despite snowy, low visibility conditions, new "World Champion Snowshoer's" were crowned and presented with champion belts as
occurred 150 years ago in Onion Valley, credited as the site of the first organized American ski races and first ski club in 1861. The
Sunday's race event, preceded by Saturdays special longboard reception, commemorated the 20th anniversary of "Plumas Ski Club sponsored
longboard revival races" and the "right honorable" 60th anniversary of the Plumas Ski Club! A good time was had by all!

The Saturday March 19th anniversary reception was held at the Plumas Eureka State Park Johnsville Museum and the "World Championship" races were held on Sunday the 20th in the historic Eureka Bowl, home of the Plumas Ski Club "Historic Longboard Revival Series". Gold seeking
miners flooded into the Lost Sierra in the early 1850's passing from the east below Eureka Peak en route to diggin's throughout the Lost Sierra
region. The gathering of longboarders and ski club supporters at Saturday's special reception featured a new commemorative slide
presentation which chronicles the unique ski history of the region and the role of the Plumas Ski Club in keeping this history "alive". The
weekend's impressive storms prevented many people from making the Saturday and Sunday trip to Johnsville but a good crowd of quite hardy
spectators and nearly 40 men and women participated in Sunday's races in what seemed "very authentic" winter race conditions.

Long time racers Carol Burney of Quincy and Eric McGrath of Reno, Nevada took home the coveted champions titles. Ski club organizers hoped the "spirits" of past Lost Sierra longboarders were "right honorably proud" as races commenced and flasks were lifted to toast what race organizers believe is a "right honorable, momentous, multi-anniversary, ski history occasion!"

The first Plumas Ski Club sponsored longboard revival race was held in 1952 at "Snowshoe Flats" followed by 19 years of revival races at the Eureka Bowl Track beginning in 1993. The Plumas Ski Club has been promoting community skiing and longboard history for 60 years including long time operation of the "Plumas Eureka Ski Bowl" ski area. The ski bowl facility is currently not in operation though efforts are ongoing to fund installation of a small chair lift to replace outdated poma surface lifts. It is believed by many ski historians that mining ore buckets operating on Eureka Peak in the mid 1870's may well have been the world's first ski lift... a distinction worthy of ski club and community efforts to bring the ski bowl operation back to life! In the mean time, the ski club is proud to continue it's sponsorship of longboard revival race "doin's" as the only remaining ski club in the entire Lost Sierra! Long live longboards!

Plumas Ski Club President Ron Logan and long time longboard promoter Rob Russell acknowledged the contributions made by many people to allow the longboard revival races to happen. "As has been the case since the 1950's, big thanks must go to the Plumas County Road Department for their 'above and beyond' efforts to keep the road passable to the ski bowl". Thanks also went to Ranger Scott Elliott of Plumas Eureka State Park for allowing the museum to be used for the reception. Russell noted that the Johnsville museum had served as a ski lodge for the club dating back to the 1940's and 1950' when a rope tow operated nearby. Braving stormy conditions, the crew from the Plumas Eureka State Park Association helped reduce parking lot chaos. Club member Pete Bartels noted the special contributions of lumber made by Sierra Pacific Industries. Over the years, "SPI" has donated wood used to make many new pairs of longboards in the Feather River College "longboard construction class". Logan also noted the special contributions made by Plumas Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative allowing use of their snow-cat and thanks to machine operator Paul Erwin for race track grooming in a blizzard!. Loren Hartwig and John Fischer provided invaluable help shuttling longboards and supplies to and from the Intorf Lodge. Additionally, Russell made special mention of club member Jim Webster for his ongoing "behind the scenes" hard work. "Jim has put in an amazing amount of time and effort for many, many years and has played a key role in keeping the longboard festivities and other club efforts going! When I and many others have a ski club question or need an opinion, Jim is the guy we seem to go to first. " said Russell. Scott Lawson, curator of the Plumas County Museum, got big thanks for his ongoing help documenting the historical record of the races not to mention serving as right honorable "Dope master" for the club. 

Following the historical themes made in an earlier presentation to the "International Ski Congress" in 2009 at Mammoth, Lawson and Russell have prepared a new "power-point" show with expanded Lost Sierra and ski club story-lines. The show describes more about Lost Sierra ski and race history and the role of the ski club and community organizations in promoting "snow-sport activities". This presentation will supposedly be part of an upcoming "Far West Ski Association" (FWSA) movie that the club was asked to contribute to.

Thanks also went to the now famous "Lost Sierra Orchestra" who have made great mountain music at these events for years. "Without music at the longboard events, it just wouldn't be the same" said event planner Lisa Kelly. Long time supporter John McMorrow and Jeff Glover also got kudos for start line duties and recognition was given to the "Clamper's" for their continuing assistance with "right honorable" judging and gong duties. "The Clampers have been part of the longboard scene dating back to the 1800's" said Lawson. Rounding out some of the acknowledgments, Phil Gallagher was recognized for his longboard art contributions dating back to 1990 and Jim and Pam Babbitt and John Sheehan were thanked for their long time help with race announcing, registration, and general "yabber jabber". "There are so many people to thank" said Russell. "We truly appreciate everyones team-work assistance and we look forward to keeping the longboard races going for years to come!"

Keep an eye on plumasskiclub.org for further information and race photos.

GIANT SLALOM RACING SKI DESIGN CONTROVERSY

Despite protests by many racers, the International Ski Federation (FIS) is on track to require longer, straighter giant slalom skis in World Cup and Olympic competition beginning in the 2011-12 season. 

In March 2011, FIS announced that, based on a five-year study undertaken through the University of Salzburg, it had identified several areas for racing safety improvement and would require changes in course setting (to reduce racing speeds), snow conditions, and equipment design.

In regard to equipment, the FIS study measured pressure applied by experienced male racers to various GS race skis, and found that athletes applied less pressure to prototypes of longer, straighter skis than to current designs. Accordingly, FIS called for changing the minimum sidecut radius of a giant slalom ski from 27 meters to 40 meters, beginning with the 2012-13 World Cup and Europa Cup season (other FIS series will have to comply beginning with the 2013-14 season).

A storm of protest followed. Dozens of racers objected. GS World Champion Ted Ligety was the most outspoken of them. Writing in Ski Racing and on his own website, TedLigety.com, he forecast more injuries, not fewer. For one thing, Ligety argues, younger racers have spent their entire careers training on 21- and 27-meter GS skis and may not fare well reverting to a step-and-slide-to-an-edgeset method of turn initiation. The longer, straighter skis may work to the advantage of taller, stronger skiers over lighter, more agile competitors. This point also implicitly raises the issue that none of theSalzburg testers were women. In July, a letter to FIS from ski manufacturers raised technical objections, including the reality that they would need more time to design and test new skis. It was signed by executives at Amer Sports (Atomic and Salomon), Fischer, Head, Nordica, Rossignol and Stoeckli.

On August 24, 2011 FIS announced that after consultation with the Ski Racing Suppliers Association, it had revised the mandate to 35 meters for men and 30 meters for women. At the same time, maximum stand height (the distance between the ski base and boot sole) will shrink from 50mm to 45mm. The goal of the equipment changes is apparently to force a return to an earlier style of skiing, in which the turn begins with a step instead of a nearly instantaneous edge change, and the carving/accelerating portion of the turn is thus reduced.

You have to go back to the 1980s, the era of Pirmin Zurbriggen, to find race GS skis with more than a 35-meter radius. By 1990, course-setters were placing GS gates further across the fall line, and the engineers making limited-production skis for the national teams reacted by making the skis turnier – usually by reducing waist width from about 68mm to around 62mm. The 1991 K2 GS Race got into production with a 62mm waist and a sidecut radius under 32 meters, even at the 210cm length. Race-room skis from all the major factories used similar geometries, two years before Elan revolutionized the recreational sport with the SCX series of shaped skis. I have a pair of GS skis from Blizzard, circa 1991, with a 61mm waist.
 

In the mid-90s, with the introduction of true shaped skis, both length and sidecut radius plummeted. GS skis as short as 175cm arrived with 15-meter sidecuts.

Then FIS stepped in. For the 2003-04, minimum sidecut radius was set at 21 meters, with a 185cm minimum length for men and 180cm minimum length for women. Stand height, which affected both the leverage a skier could apply to edging and the angle at which the boot would ground on the snow, was limited to 55mm. Four years later, radius increased to 27 meters for men and 23 meters for women, stand height came down to 50mm, and the minimum waist width increased from 60mm to 65mm. The width change made a dramatic difference in the way the ski behaved on hard snow: it centralized pressure under the boot at high edging angles.

Rupert Huber, vice president for product development for Amer Sports (Atomic and Salomon), says his athletes have tested 35-meter prototypes and are satisfied they can compete successfully on them. Since 2004, Amer has been a major sponsor of the Christian Doppler Laboratory at the University of Salzburg’s Institute of Sports Science, and has used the laboratory’s findings in its own product development programs. President of Amer’s wintersports division is Dr Michael Schineis, who also serves as president of the Ski Racing Suppliers Association.

Boot and binding designer David Dodge sent FIS a letter citing previously published skiing safety research and suggesting that theSalzburgstudies were flawed. Specifically, he noted that a trained athlete will always put 100 percent effort onto a familiar piece of equipment, and be tentative on something novel – like a longer, straighter prototype. Once athletes become used to the new geometry, they will go 100 percent again. Moreover, they will angulate further to achieve today’s turning radii, leading to a rise in unstable-knee injuries.

It’s unclear why FIS singled out GS skis for attention. Over the first three years of the Salzburg study, FIS alpine racers suffered 59 severe knee injuries, defined as time loss more than four weeks. The Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centerstudied video of 20 of those injuries. Ten occurred in downhill, one in Super G, seven in GS and two in slalom. Ligety claims that over the past two seasons, only three top-30 GS stars have been hurt, and none of those crashes was caused by the skis. He also points out that both slalom specialists and downhill specialists also run GS, so that more runs happen in GS than in any other discipline. That means the frequency of injuries in GS is much lower than in downhill.

Presumably, assuming the manufacturers will allow it, FIS will eventually address the issue of binding release, or design. Then we may see some progress beyond today’s lowest-common-denominator DIN standard.

Photo: Tom Kelly/US Ski Team

In the beginning, there was the vision of John Fry.

He was the youthful editor-in-chief of SKI Magazine during the 1960s. The United States ski industry was young in the 1960s - and growing fast.

Fry saw some things that disturbed him about American ski instruction and ski area management, including:

• Ski schools concentrated on teaching "style" with no definite scoring system to measure a student's progress or a skier's general proficiency.
• There was no organized national competition for the recreational skier when, all research indicated, the recreational skier comprised 95 per cent of the total skiing population.
• Certain areas refused even to allow the setting of gates for race practice.

In the October, 1967 edition of SKI, Fry wrote a strongly-worded editorial deploring the "sorry state of affairs" of skiing at that time.

"We have forgotten that skiing is a sport, sport is competition, and that is what the fun and excitement is all about." He went on to say that the forbidding of practice in gates "is a policy that surpasses imbecility."

"Somewhere along the line, skiing has lost touch with competition. When it happened, we snuffed out a flame that should light our sport. It is sorely in need of re-ignition."

Fifteen years later, John described the tone of his words as "somewhat irascible." Maybe so, but his opinion of those ski industry practices was right on the mark. And that editorial carried in it the seed of the idea for Nastar.

During the 1967-68 winter, he pressed forward with his idea about establishing a program for recreational skiers with a national standard. "Wherever I went - to ski areas or meetings of ski industry people - I asked people if they had any ideas about how skiers could measure their speed, ability or performance on some kind of a common basis."

The French Connection

On a trip to Vermont, Fry was told by Bob Gratton, the ski school director at Mt. Snow, that he might gain some valuable insight by studying the French Chamois Races.

NASTAR uses the principal of time percentages to calibrate a skier's ability, a concept pioneered by France's Ecole de Ski Nationale Chamois program. For certification, a ski instructor had to perform well enough in the Ecole's annual Challenge to earn a silver medal.. . be less than 25 percent behind the time recorded by the fastest instructor. The Chamois  was a regular slalom race course with hairpins and flushes. A certified instructor, back at his home area, could set the pace for local participants  in Chamois races. His time was not re-calibrated or speeded up, as in Nastar, by the amount he lagged behind the winning time in the annual Challenge. The Nastar idea of adjusting a local pacesetter's time to a national standard was introduced in France 20 years later,in the winter of 1987-88. SNMSF (Syndicat National des Moniteurs de Ski Francais) introduced Fleche, an open-gated giant slalom, during the same winter that Nastar began, though unknown to Nastar's founder Fry. 

Fry envisioned another possibility. "It didn't take long for the dim bulb in my cerebrum to light up and see that simple, open-gate giant slalom races on intermediate slopes could attract hundreds of thousands of people to measure their skiing ability."

The idea for the new program had now crystallized in John's mind.

First, top racers and instructors nationwide would come together at the beginning of the season to rate their performance against the best U.S. racer of the time. Then they would return to their home resorts as pacesetters.

The times recorded by these local pacesetters, adjusted by the amount of their percentage ratings, would create a national standard. And that standard could be used to compare the performances of recreational racers throughout the country.

If pacesetter Roger at Steamboat was originally 6 per cent slower than the nation's fastest racer, and a Steamboat guest was 20 per cent slower than Roger, then he or she was about 26 per cent slower than America's fastest skier would have been if he'd skied the Steamboat course that day. The guest had a 26 handicap.

In addition to comparing skiers around the nation, handicaps would be used as the basis for awarding pins (gold, silver, bronze) according to a racer's level of proficiency.

Naming the Program

Top management at SKI Magazine was very supportive of Fry and his idea, which he wanted to call the National Standard Race, with the acronym "Nastar." Together, they decided to organize a pilot program for the 1968-69 season.

Of primary importance was finding a sponsor capable and willing to fund a national program. "We found out that the advertising agency for the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. was interested in sponsoring some kind of ski program," recalled Fry. "I flew to Chicago and we presented it to them."

The ad agency people were very interested, but they absolutely insisted on calling the program "the Schlitz Open." When John returned to New York and told his German-speaking wife about the negotiations, she burst into laughter. "What's so funny?," he asked. She informed him that Schlitz is the German word for the fly on a man's pants.

Armed with his new linguistic expertise, Fry telephoned the ad agency to re-open negotiations. "Ski areas employ many German-speaking instructors," he told them. "You guys would be laughed off the mountain."

Schlitz finally decided to support the program with the name "Nastar." They also would sponsor an invitational final event, named "The Schlitz Giant Slalom," to which the best Nastar ski racers of the winter would be invited - at no cost to the competitors.

The Original Eight

The program really began to take shape in the fall of 1968 when eight ski areas signed on to take part in the inaugural season. They represented a geographical cross section of American ski country: Alpental, Washington; Boyne Country, Michigan: Heavenly Valley, California; Mt. Snow, Vermont; Mt. Telemark, Wisconsin; Song Mountain, New York; Vail, Colorado; and Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Jimmie Heuga, an American hero since winning a medal in the 1964 Olympics, signed on as the first national pacesetter. Gloria Chadwick, who had just left the USSA, took on the job of secretary/coordinator of Nastar.

Tom Corcoran organized and hosted the first Pacesetter Trials, which were held at Waterville Valley in early December. The eight areas sent their top pros to earn a pacesetter rating. At those trials, Manfred Krings of Mt. Snow equalled Heuga's zero handicap.

Computer specialist Charlie Gibson programmed the original Nastar handicap tables used by ski areas to determine gold, silver and bronze pin winners.

Bob Beattie

Only 2,297 persons took part in Nastar that first season. However, by the time of the March Finals at Heavenly Valley, word-of-mouth praise was attracting the interest of many more recreational skiers. For the second year of operation, plans called for expansion to 35 participating ski areas. This would mean increased costs, and thus a need for more sponsors to share the greater financial load. Nastar needed a salesman who could move easily in the atmosphere of top-level management.

Bob Beattie, who had recently resigned as head coach of the U.S. Alpine Team, was just such a man. He became Nastar commissioner, a position he would hold for 30 years.

By the start of the 1969-70 season, Beattie had sponsorship agreements with TWA, Bonne Bell and Hertz to ease the financial load on Schlitz and SKI Magazine (owner of Nastar). He and Gloria Chadwick had signed up 39 areas, and the program was really rolling.

Then and Now: Different Practices

The basic Nastar system has remained the same for 35 years. But a few practices in the early seasons may be surprising to modern racers, including:

No age divisions. Although the percentages needed to earn pins varied slightly from men to women, there were no age divisions whatsoever the first year.

That meant a 70-year-old racer had to ski just as fast as one who was 25 years old in order to win any kind of pin.

Nastar leaders discovered this was not very practical, and the format was soon changed. Adults were split into ten-year age divisions with varying handicaps needed to earn pins. The ten-year brackets would continue until 1999, when adult divisions started being split every five years.

A program for junior racers (originally sponsored by Pepsi Cola) was started in the early 1970s. Like the adults, there were several age divisions with varying handicaps needed to win pins.

Presentation of pins. In modern times, most ski areas give pins to winners at the bottom of the course at the time of the race. A much bigger production was made of the Nastar pin presentation process in the early years.

Racers were allowed to earn only one pin per year in each of the three (gold, silver, bronze) categories. Those pins were mailed to the winners at the end of the season, and their names were published in SKI Magazine.

In the program's second season (1969-70), SKI reported that 664 gold pins were awarded. The number grew to nearly 3,000 by 1972-73.

Changing Role

With Beattie and his World Wide Ski Corp. staff on board to manage the administration of the program, the role of Fry and SKI Magazine changed to one of editorial support.

And SKI has given plenty of publicity, running stories about Nastar very regularly.

"I have always believed that a special interest magazine like SKI should not only report journalistically," Fry said, "but should get actively involved in advancing programs which are good for the sport. I think that Nastar has more than fulfilled that role." The editorial support helped propel participation in the program to an even higher level than was dreamed by its pioneering founders in the 1960s.

Crans-Montana, Kitzbühel dispute first downhill race

In early April 2011, a commemorative race was held on the ski slopes of Crans-Montana, Switzerland, to mark the 100th anniversary of the first Roberts of Kandahar downhill. Some 260 participants, organized into 60 teams, descended eight miles from the Plaine-Morte to Montana-Violettes, most of them wearing vintage skis and clothing, including retro glacier glasses. In the promotional flyer, event organizers said the race also marked the centennial of the “first official alpine ski race in history.”

This claim is contested by ski historians in Kitzbühel, who produced documents from the Kitzbühel Winter Sports Club, which held a “Ski Race for the Club Master Title” on the Hahnenkamm in April 1906. The timed downhill race covered three kilometers (1.86 miles) with a vertical drop of 624 meters (2,047 feet). It was won by Sebastian Monitzer in eight minutes, one second. “The quoted difference in altitude and route are almost identical to [the course] used for the ladies downhill in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the Super G of today,” says the club’s letter of rebuttal. “Further ‘pure downhill’ races were held in subsequent years,” including a team downhill in February 1910. –John Fry

FOUNDER CALLS IT A DISSERVICE TO GUESTS

 The National Standard Race, NASTAR –designed in 1968 – brought the equivalent of golf’s par to skiing. Now, one of the eight original NASTAR ski areas, Vail, has decided to pull itself and its other Colorado ski resorts out of the 44-year-old national recreation racing program. NASTAR founder John Fry calls Vail’s decision “a disservice to its guests.”

The NASTAR handicap is the percentage gap between a recreational skier’s time and that of the local pacesetter, whose own handicap derives from his performance against a top racer on the U.S. Ski Team. NASTAR races are short, open giant slalom-type courses, usually on intermediate terrain. Last season, a skier could compare his or her rating – gold, silver, bronze — to that of anyone at any of 120 resorts across North America.

In 2011-12, nearly 100,000 skiers compared their race times to pacesetter and U.S. Ski Team racer Steve Nyman. Due to the poor snow season, participation was down 8.4 percent from the 568,428 runs of the 2010-11 season. During that big year, Vail ranked as the most NASTAR-crazy resort in the nation, posting 29,310 runs. Beaver Creek was second, with 20,062 runs. Together, four Vail Resorts in Colorado accounted for more than 13 percent of all NASTAR runs in 2010-11.

That won’t be the case in 2012-13. This coming season, Vail is abandoning NASTAR in order to create its own standard race linked to the company’s EpicMix online skier-tracking program. The program will operate at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado, and at Heavenly, Kirkwood and Northstar at Lake Tahoe.

NASTAR director Bill Madsen takes Vail’s exit philosophically. “Vail’s business model is to own everything that happens on the mountain. We will miss them. We think of NASTAR as a unifying force for the ski industry as a whole, and our championships as a unifying event.”

Four years ago, in a similar action, Vail Resorts withdrew its participation and funding from Colorado Ski Country USA, which promotes skiing at Colorado resorts.

NASTAR’s creator John Fry, former Editor-in-chief of SKI Magazine whose publisher came to own the program, is puzzled by Vail’s decision. “In the past, Vail guests coming from the East, Midwest or Far West, could enhance their NASTAR standings earned at their home ski area. That’ll no longer be possible.

“It’s difficult to see why Vail resorts would be doing this to their guests,” Fry continues. “Vail Resorts owns seven golf resorts. I doubt it would stop recognizing the handicaps guests hold at their home courses.”

Pacesetter for the EpicMix race season will be Vail skiing ambassador Lindsey Vonn, current World Cup women’s champion. EpicMix will hold a finale championship, to compete with NASTAR’s national championship, scheduled for Aspen/Snowmass at the end of March. The U.S. Ski Team, of which Vonn is a member, plays a prominent role in the Nastar championships, and even uses the handicap ratings of sub-teen racers to spot future talent.

EpicMix will rate racers by the number of seconds they’re behind the pacesetter, whose time is calibrated to Lindsey Vonn. Performance through the season is recorded on the skier’s pass, which is equipped with a radio-frequency identifying chip that also records lift rides and keeps a running total of vertical footage skied. Now the chip will automatically register the racer at the starting gate, billing the racer for each run ($5 or $6, according to a Vail press release). Finish times will post automatically to the EpicMix database. Race times, digital medals, leaderboards and race photos will be viewable on the EpicMix website and on the smart-phone app. Results can also be sent to a racer’s Facebook page or Twitter account.

It’s not the first time NASTAR has faced competition. The Equitable Family Ski Challenge, launched in the 1970s, ultimately failed.

The national pacesetter for NASTAR in the original 1968 season was Jimmie Heuga. The pacesetters for the upcoming 2012-13 season are U.S. Ski Team stars Ted Ligety and Julia Mancuso.

Giant slalom was invented in Italy in 1935 —  the result of an accident of weather, according to a recent article in the magazineSciare.  It happened when a downhill race, scheduled to take place on January 19, 1935, in Mottarone, above Lake Maggiore in Piedmont, had to be modified because of lack of snow.

In place of the classic, open downhill of the time, the FISI (Italian Ski Federation) commissioner Gianni Albertini decided

Helmuth Lantschner at Kitzbuehel, 1939

to prepare a new course with gates, forcing the racers to follow a specific path down the mountain.  The vertical drop was quite small, 300 meters (a thousand feet), so he decided that the race should be in two runs.  The winner, Austria’s Helmuth Lantschner took two minutes thirty-one and one-fifth seconds. Giacinto Sertorelli, the Italian ace, was third, six seconds behind.

FISI was so satisfied with the new formula that they officially introduced the giant slalom race in the Italian championships at Cortina, February 12, 1935.  A course was prepared on the Olympia delle Tofane, 900 meters vertical drop, course setter, once again, Gianni Albertini.  Twenty-six male competitors started.  The race was won by Giacinto Sertorelli, in six-and-a-half minutes.  Six women competed.  The winner was Paula Wiesinger, in eight minutes 19.8 seconds.

A recent article in Skiing Heritage gave attention to the American contribution to the development of the GS —  a 1937 race at Mt. Washington. Yet it was the Italians who sponsored an annual—and international—race.  In 1936 there was one on a shortened course on the Marmolada, won  by Eberhardt Kneissl of Austria. Full 50-gate slaloms were won in 1937 by Josef Gstrein (AUT),  in 1939 by Vittorio Chierroni (ITA).  Women’s races took place in 1935 with Gabriella Dreher (ITA) winning, Elvira Osirnig (SUI) in 1936.

Aspen in 1950 marked the first FIS World Alpine Ski Championships to include giant slalom. The gold medal was won by Italy’s Zeno Colò, who also won the downhill and took a silver in slalom. From the FIS GS at Aspenonward the GS was a one-run race until the World Championships at Portillo,Chile, in August 1966 when the men raced two runs, the women still one run. Four years later at Val Gardena, Italy, women began to race two runs in world championship GS.

Matteo Pacor, who operates the superb racing results website www.ski-db.com, recalls his first experience of watching a two-run giant slalom during the Innsbruck Olympics in 1976, held over two days.  “I was ten years old and a huge fan of Ingemar Stenmark.  He skied badly in the first run.  I didn’t sleep well.”

(Matteo Pacor, John Allen and John Fry contributed to this article. Photo of Helmuth Lantschner shot in Kitzbuehel, 1939)